Justifying Application Modernization: Industry Analogies Explain Choices In A Business Context

Wary business executives are squeezed by external competition for market share and internal competition for operating and IT budgets. Applications professionals can no longer expect that the justification of the twentieth century — "Trust me, you need this" — will convince business leaders to fund IT modernization activity. Irrespective of need, business leaders increasingly meet technically based modernization proposals with resistance and skepticism. Applications professionals should rethink traditional approaches to justifying application modernization, reframing the debate around business value expressed in the context of key analogies that make intuitive sense to business leaders.